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BNEF’s outlook marks a watershed moment in the world’s energy mix – not just a transformation of how we get our electricity, but the moment global carbon dioxide emissions peak and stop growing. Perhaps best of all, BNEF’s renewable electricity forecast tracks with transportation sector predictions across the same time period, meaning rapid decarbonization could be just around the corner.

No Going Back On Renewable Energy’s Dominance

Fossil fuel’s share of power generation is set to fall from 64% today to 44% by 2030, primarily on the basis of market forces and economics, adding 1,073 gigawatts (GW). “Ultimately the forecast is driven by life-cycle cost of building different power generation technologies to meet projected demand,” said Seb Henbest, BNEF Regional Head for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.

As evidenced in recent years, the rapid fall in solar photovoltaic (PV) costs will power renewables’ rise. Rooftop solar PV is expected to dominate new investments, creating a “small-scale solar revolution” and representing a fifth of all new capacity additions and investment through 2020. But wind energy won’t be left out of the boom – combined with solar, the two technologies will grow their share of global generation from 3% in 2013 to 16% in 2030.

Renewables Boom Means Global Emissions Will Peak

Fossil fuels are expected to retain a presence in the world’s power mix, especially in developing countries where demand is growing fastest. For instance, India’s power demand is expected to rise 200% by 2030 while China’s demand will grow 115%

Coal capacity is expected to shrink in every region except Asia, and natural gas generation will continue to grow across the world due to a lower emissions profile and abundant supply created by the shale gas boom.

Factors like energy efficiency, slow economic growth, and rising retail power prices will help slow overall growth in power demand, but to reach renewables’ full power sector decarbonization potential, BNEF says some form of policy intervention, i.e. carbon pricing or subsidies, will be needed.

Even so, the rapid growth of renewables means we finally get some good news on climate change. “What we are seeing is global CO2 emissions on track to stop growing by the end of next decade, with the peak only pushed back because of fast-growing developing countries,” said Michael Liebriech, Chairman of BNEF’s advisory board.

Major Regional Differences In Future Power Mix

Those disparities become even more apparent by parsing regional data. The fast-growing Asia-Pacific region will dominate new capacity additions, adding more generation (2,794GW) than the rest of the world combined (2,647GW). While this means more new renewables (1,743GW) and investment ($2.5 trillion), it also means continued growth in natural gas capacity (283GW) and coal (434GW) at a clip of one new coal plant every two weeks. Still, BNEF expects 47% of installed capacity and 33% of generated electricity will be from renewables by 2030.

The picture looks different across the North and Latin American region, where $1.3 trillion in investments will build 557GW new power generation capacity through 2026. Natural gas will dominate investment in the United States, Canada, and Mexico, pulling in 24% of new capacity on the strength of shale gas’ boom – but those gains will push coal out, as 100GW of retirements are expected in the U.S. while policy “makes it all but impossible to build new coal in the U.S. and Canada.

Contrasting with those two regions, renewables are about to boom across the European region. Renewables are expected to attract more than 75% of the $1.3 trillion in new power capacity investment through 2030. In fact, BNEF reports renewables will represent 60% of all generation capacity in 2030, with 20% coming from offshore wind. As a result, coal will become an afterthought, with it’s share of generation falling from 19% to 8% However, BNEF warns this renewables boom means Europe’s grid will need flexible capacity – in the form of demand response, energy storage, or fast-ramping natural gas – to balance intermittency.

The map of demand growth by region has a misleading colour scale. It’s the slow-growing regions that should be green, the fast-growing ones red.

The amount of new fossil capacity predicted for India (almost entirely coal) looks very high. The coal industry is in crisis, and regularly misses targets. Modi doesn’t tolerate failure, and led Gujarat successfully into mass solar deployment. The politics don’t favour coal in China either.

A lot depends on growth in demand. Australia shows how rapid the drop in demand can be once households and businesses get serious about conservation. The technologies for highly efficient lighting and low-energy buildings already exist, and the former at least is being adopted quickly. Electrification of transport will cut final energy demand for the same work, simply because electric traction is end-to-end far more efficient. Those notorious DVD players that guzzle power on standby will disappear, because the controllers that put them into hibernation cost pennies.

BTW, fans, look how marginal BNEF thinks nuclear power will be. They obviously think China will scale back new reactor starts any day now, and India won’t get going at all.

Bob_Wallace

You might be reading too much into the thinning nuclear line. That may be more a function of US and French reactors aging out and not being replaced.

China is so in need of new non-coal electricity that they may keep on building reactors regardless of renewables being much cheaper. I’m just suggesting that might happen, not predicting it. It could as easily be that China will go for cheaper, faster to install renewables. Especially if some of the newer storage technology pans out.

Matt

The chart show a jump in Nuclear. From 6% of 5.6GW in 2012 to 5% of 10.6GW; when you account for all the plant closing they are assuming a lot get built. Not saying they are correct, just reading the graphic. Note that there is a lot of disruption possible, so things could look a lot better than this chart, and hopefully will.

Bob_Wallace

I don’t think nuclear will keep up. Right now we’re looking at a net decrease just assuming the plants under construction and those scheduled to close follow through.

Then, a bit further down the road, a lot of the world’s nuclear fleet is either going to age out or have to undergo expensive refurbishing in order to extend its lifetime. I expect a lot of plants will be closed. And I think the falling cost of renewables, along with more advanced storage, will make it financially unwise to build nuclear.

Wind Energy

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